Physiology of acid-base balance in bovines with diarrhea backgrounds from Monteria, Colombia

Objective. Evaluate the acid-base balance (ABB) in bovines with diarrheic backgrounds in four areas of Montería, Colombia. Materials and methods. From a total of 300 pregnant cows, 60 were selected with their newborns. A direct inspection was performed of vital signs on the calves and the ABB indicators were determined using a gasometric method. Data were processed by means of descriptive statistics and the Duncan test was used to differentiate between the averages. The degree of association was established between the ABB indicators in cows and calves by using the Pearson correlation and a comparison of proportions was performed on the indexes of the newborns. Results. Regarding the cows, the ABB indicators were found within the reference values; however, in the calves the pH, pCO2, HCO3-, the anion gap (AG) and the bases excess (BE) varied. A correlation was found between AG, BE and metabolic hydrogen ions (M*H). The AG in cows and calves showed notable differences (p<0.05) among the farms in the study. According to the numeric classification system, the suction reflect indicated a greater percentage of calves in group one. Conclusions. The ABB analyte measurement in cows was similar to the consulted reference; however, in calves some analytes did not coincide. This suggests metabolic acidosis in newborn calves due to the increase of AG and the decrease of BE. Additionally, its correlation with M*H opens the possibility of new proposals to determine ABB in bovines.